Sentence Edit of the Day: Dangling from the Rear

Most writers and editors have trained themselves to watch out for danglers and other misplaced phrases (prepositional phrases, especially) at the beginning of a sentence.

So, because I usually work with copy written by well-trained writers and editors, I often find misplaced phrases at the end of a sentence. Here's one:

Just remember to return the favor when others contact you by responding promptly to their requests.

This sentence is confusing (or at least slightly unpleasant to read) because the phrase "by responding promptly to their requests" is attached to the nearest verb—"contact"—instead of the verb it's truly modifying: "return." Here's one fix:

Just remember to return the favor by responding promptly to others' requests.

If you work in an environment where aggressive changes to text are grumbled about, a "rear dangler" (or a squinting modifier) can often be fixed by adding a comma (which can seem to separate the phrase from any dangerous attachments):

Just remember to return the favor when others contact you, by responding promptly to their requests.

A mentor used to call these commas "clarity commas," and they should be used sparingly.

Relative clauses, too, often get mixed up in sentences. Here's a sentence that a friend asked me to help sort out:

Three trends accelerated in 2010 that may redefine the way we shop for good.

Here are the sentence's two main problems: The clause "that may redefine ..." is clumsily situated. And "for good" is trying to be a prepositional phrase that attaches to "shop" (it is intended to adverbially modify "redefine").

Here's my fix:

Three trends that may forever redefine the way we shop accelerated in 2010.

If you feel that "accelerated in 2010" needs more prominence in the sentence, you might try:

Three trends that accelerated in 2010 may forever redefine the way we shop.